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Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

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Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#71
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get 50Mbps with 4G connection for 20euros per month. No data cap. Public ipv4 address. Router is 4 years old Huawei 4g router and I have installed outdoor antenna on the roof for stable connection. I have been with this setup at home for the last 4 years. I could propably get faster connection with new router but this is fine.

That still doesn't compare to the 300Mbps I'm getting right now even through Comcast, or the 1Gbps I'll be getting once the local fiber company builds out in my neighborhood in the next year or so.

For how much per month?

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming that, like most "unlimited" plans, it includes substantial data caps after the first few GB.

They increased it last year from 32GB to 50GB a month. Frankly, I think even a 50GB cap on an "unlimited" plan should be illegal, but it's better than most carriers. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16334690/t-mobile-unlimit...

It's not a cap, you're just throttled. If they advertise unlimited 4g or whatever speeds then it already is illegal. No one does that though, they just say unlimited data

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#73
post #32

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

It's happening already. Verizon just announced $50 unlimited home internet: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/11/verizon-5g-home/

> Priced at $50 for people who already have Verizon wireless and $70 for those who don't, it's promising speeds of "around 300 Mbps" up to 1 Gbps, with no data caps.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#75
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't put all your eggs in one basket" There is a reason most vendors pick from 2 or more manufacturers/suppliers.

I've long wondered if the best way to buy software may be to just buy from multiple vendors and see what works best, damned the purchase costs, just to fix the information asymmetry.

well, if you are on the buy side, you can have the vendor demonstrate interop via rfp etc. that might be one way to go about it...

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#76

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

Did you have a smartphone 10 years ago? Do you remember what 3G was like? Wasn't so bad, right? Try using 3G in any metropolitan area today, a lot of times it's painfully slow. Why is that? Congestion. The reason to upgrade isn't necessarily to improve the best case performance for a single user it's to provide a better quality of service for a larger number of users. Anyone who's attended an event like comic-con or…

probably part of it is also inconsiderate developers.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#77
post #45

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

Do ordinary consumers actually run into data caps routinely? When I was on T-Mobile, I used hotspot extensively and never paid attention to my data usage, but never hit the soft cap on their unlimited plan. Also, data caps grew a lot in the 3G -> 4G transition, and will grow a lot in the 4G -> 5G transition: https://www.pcmag.com/news/357374/verizon-no-4g-level-data-c...

Yes definitely. Caps can be as low as 500MB and you can easily hit that with a few online videos and some music.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#78

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

I was under the impression that the real improvement in "5G" systems was in how many concurrent users they can handle, not the amount of bandwidth they can offer a single user.

So, kind of. There’s two parts to it.. By creating more cells you free up the number of users per cell and the bandwidth demand on that cell, providing lower latency and higher speeds. Millimeter-wave technology is another component of 5g that is going to take a while to materialize in phones and to even solve many of it’s fundamental transmission issues. Eventually, mmwave tech will lead to massively faster speeds, but who knows if it’ll ever make sense to put in a phone.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#79
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

It's happening already. Verizon just announced $50 unlimited home internet: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/11/verizon-5g-home/ > Priced at $50 for people who already have Verizon wireless and $70 for those who don't, it's promising speeds of "around 300 Mbps" up to 1 Gbps, with no data caps.

Wow. So what’s going to be the argument for mobile data caps going forward?

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#80
post #34

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

I was a little excited for 4G, because while 3G achieved respectable throughput, the latency was terrible- 4G seemed to dramatically improve. IMO 4G is pretty solid all around, and for the first time people are going, "5G? Why?"

4G doesn’t work very well in heavily congested areas, and you can just fit more bandwidth over 5G by having more cells and less people on each cell
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